An Inland Bronze Age: Excavations At

An Inland Bronze Age: Excavations at Striplands Farm, West Longstanton Christopher Evans and Ricky Patten, with Matt Brudenell and Maisie Taylor With contributions by Grahame Appleby, Steve Boreham, Vida Rajkovacˇa and Anne de Vareilles The findings are outlined from the excavation of a later Early Medieval settlement features within that area, Bronze Age settlement located well ‘inland’ – respectively, this also revealed the western side of a small Middle/ 5 and 7km away from the Ouse and Cam River Valleys, later Iron Age enclosure (Hutton 2009). One of a and 6km back from the fen-edge – at Longstanton, where number of such sites in the greater Longstanton area it straddled the flanks of a gravel ridge running across the (Evans et al. 2008, 179, fig. 3.23), as its limited excava- Cambridgeshire clay plain. While given its rather piecemeal tion only produced 38 sherds of that date (and its fau- exposure, the site offers few major insights concerning the nal assemblage only amounting to c. 50 bones) it need period’s settlement generally, it nevertheless reflects upon a not further feature herein. number of crucial themes: the nature/chronology of ‘heavy Directly associated with Area A’s Saxo-Norman/ land’ colonisation and when its pioneering occurred, the key Medieval settlement, both linearly arranged quar- role of water provisioning and, due to localised depositional ry pits and paddock/field boundaries extended survival, middening dynamics. As regards the latter, the throughout the four other areas; whereas a system of site generated one of the region’s largest later Bronze Age Romano-British ditches were confined to only the two ceramic assemblages and, through waterlogged preserva- northernmost exposures (Areas D & E). As this pub- tion of its deep-cut pit-wells, yielded an important group of lication is not concerned with the Village’s long-term wooden artefacts and other finds. development, the evidence of these periods need not detain us. This being said, one of its later-phase fea- Lying between 6.5–8.5m OD and located at the inter- tures is of interest. Located at the junction of what was face between Ampthill Clay and Third Terrace gravels evidently ‘in’ and out-field dividing ditches (Fig. 3), (TL 53033/26790), the c. 4ha site was first discovered F.362 was a Saxo-Norman (Thetford Ware-associated) in 2004 during evaluation fieldwork relating to the well. This waterlogged feature, aside from yielding a Northstowe New Town/West Longstanton develop- group of important wooden artefacts – a wheel fel- ment (Fig. 1; Evans & Mackay 2004 and Evans et al. loe, cartside rail-top and a yoke – had very good pol- 2008, 174–81).1 It was then excavated between April len and, as will be shown below, by ‘village analogy’ and August of the following year (Patten & Evans this helps situate or inform our picture of the earlier, 2005). Due variously to protected hedge-lines and Bronze Age settlement. the location of power-cables, the site was fractured into five main areas (A–E; Figs. 2 & 3), with the subdi- vided central block (B–D) – where the bulk of its pre- Settlement Architecture and Organisation historic settlement lay – being the main exposure. At that time further trenching was undertaken, largely Before considering the character of the later Bronze to determine the extent of its Bronze Age settlement, Age settlement-phase, it warrants mention that the and this revealed still another large pit-well north of site’s flint assemblage attests to both Mesolithic/Early the cables that divided Areas D and E. Consequently, Neolithic and later Neolithic/Early Bronze Age back- this area was targeted for geophysical survey (by ground activity, albeit at a low/’incidental’ density Oxford Archaeotechnics), and in 2006 this resulted (see below); in addition, a single sherd of Beaker and in the excavation of a c. 225sqm area focussed upon four of Deverel Rimbury pottery were also recovered. that feature (Area 1; Mackay & Knight 2007). In addi- The basic components of the Bronze Age settlement tion, a new trench was cut to target another possible were those now known to be common to the ‘gram- anomaly, wherein a few associated minor settlement mar’ of the period’s settlements. In the main, its extent features were exposed (Area 2).2 would be marked by the distribution of its pit-wells Relating to the sale of the land, July 2009 saw the over some 1.7ha (they clearly did not continue across final stage of excavation along its southern road-side the southern two-thirds of Area B and, beyond that, end (Area A; Fig. 2). Though primarily directed to- into Area A; Figs. 2 & 3). Lying, however, west beyond wards the completion of the dense Saxo-Norman/ this, in Area E, were a four-poster granary (Structure Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society C pp. 7–45 8 Christopher Evans and Ricky Patten Striplands Farm, West Longstanton, location maps with Northstowe/Longstanton evaluation sites indicated on detail right. Figure 1. Figure An Inland Bronze Age: Excavations at Striplands Farm, West Longstanton 9 Figure 2. Site Base-plan. I; 2.4 x 2.6m) and, also, the axes of an ‘L’-shaped ditch other less well-defined posthole settings surely oc- paddock, with another possible ditch length (F.506) – curred within that area. only tentatively assigned as ‘early’ based on alignment In order to provide a sense of comparable context (and not positive dating evidence) – exposed in Area 1. for the site’s pits/wells, the same size-categories that Given this, the settlement would then have extended were employed in the recent analyses of Fengate’s over, at least, 2.7ha; it only being its southern limits Bronze Age settlements have been used (A–D; Evans that, at this time, we can be relatively assured of. et al. 2009, 70–2, 152, fig. 3.5 and table 4.9). As plot- As marked by its array of posthole settings and ted in Fig. 5, they were generally quite large, with small pits, the settlement’s core clearly fell within two-thirds of the site’s 51 such features being greater Area D (Fig. 4), though it surely extended north of this than 1.4m across and more than 0.5m deep (Fig. 5). point and beyond the line of the power cables. Amid Of the total, 11 were more than 1.0m deep and, for the spread of such minor features within it, a series our immediate purposes here, these have – if rather of structural configurations were distinguished. arbitrarily – been categorised as wells. As is apparent Least obvious, despite their designation as Structure in Table 1, these features yielded the majority of the III, was the posthole cluster around and within the settlement’s finds. upper profile of the large pit-well, F.210. Also appar- Other ent there was a possible (‘-only’) longhouse, Structure Pits Wells Total IV. Extending over 3.9 x 7.8m, this could be compared Features 425 3867 25 4317 to similar settings found at both Barleycroft Farm Pottery (5426g) (35280g) (85g) (40791g) and Tanholt Farm, Eyebury (see Evans et al. 2009, 51, 1101 6363 116 7580 Bone 53–5, fig. 2.17). Also distinguished was a porched, (4350g) (48060g) (549g) (52959g) 6m-diameter roundhouse (Structure II). This lay on 13 528 6 547 Flint the western side of a dense posthole spread, which (140g) (4873g) (6g) (5019g) clearly included a west/northwest-east/southeast ori- ented fence-line, and probably had other four-posters Table 1. Artefact frequency by feature-type along its northern side. It is possible to identify other short ‘fence-type’ alignments and, on the whole, Of the site’s wells, having depths in excess of 1.3m, 10 Christopher Evans and Ricky Patten Figure 3. Base-plan (detail), Bronze Age Settlement Features. five were extensively waterlogged. These also yielded sandy silts. Though the wooden items were recovered from the basal fills, pottery was only retrieved from the the majority of its non-organic finds, with the vast upper two deposits; a large occipital and left parietal bulk deriving from the midden deposits within the human skull fragments also occurred within the lower upper profiles of F.210 and F.504/526 (Table 2). of these fills. It is appropriate that the salient characteristics of F.71–73/F.156 (Figs. 3, 6 & 22): This initially appeared as an the highlighted features be presented in some detail: irregular-shaped feature, c. 9.25m long and 7.0m wide. F.13 (Figs. 3 & 6): Some 6.0m wide, while this could not be Excavation identified four distinct features/re-cuts. The completely exposed it was excavated to its full depth of earliest, F.156, was severely truncated and survived to 1.35m. It had steep sides with a gradual break of slope a depth of 0.65m; having steep sides (the southeastern to a concave base on the eastern side, with sharp, almost undercut) and a uniformly flat base, it contained a grey- right-angled breaks of slope on the southern and western green silt. This was succeeded by F.72, c. 1.9m in diam- sides. A distinct step and flattened area was also present eter and 1.0m deep. Also severely truncated, F.72 had a in the northeast base of the feature at 0.7m depth. Into near-vertical northern side, steep sides on the southern this had been set a horizontal log, retained in position by edge and a flat base. Its fills consisted of sandy rede- a series of vertical stakes, probably creating an access- posited natural ‘slump’, blue-grey silty clay and a dark staging point into the well.

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